Metaphorical duality: High school subject departments as both communities and organizations

This article investigates the metaphorical duality that exists when school subject departments are concurrently conceptualized as both communities and organizations. Employing a narrative methodology, we use the metaphorical duality to examine the manner in which science teachers negotiate two key aspects of their work; professional learning and teacher leadership. The reified meanings that the department (as community) negotiates are the foundations for the actions that the department (as organization) takes. It is this sense of understanding and commitment to the department as community that provides the department as organization with its political power within a school.     

Professional community and the problem of high school reform

A two-year qualitative study of mathematics and English teachers in two urban comprehensive high schools investigated how teacher community serves as resource for teacher development and school reform. A school engaged in whole-school reform sustained high teacher commitment and school-level community by constituting professional community strongly at the school level, but its departments displayed varying capacity and disposition to examine problems of teaching and learning at the classroom level. In the second school, innovative teacher communities were constituted strongly at the department level in English and mathematics, but suffered problems of stress and turnover due to weak organizational supports for teacher development and school reform. Findings point both to the potential contribution of professional communities situated in subject departments and the challenge of capitalizing on such communities to advance whole-school reform. The study suggests complex relationships among organizational context, teacher community, teacher development, and institutional reform.     

Locating learning in teachers’ communities of practice: opening up problems of analysis in records of everyday work

Research spanning more than two decades points to the benefits of vigorous collegial communities, yet relatively little research examines specifically how professional communities supply intellectual, social and material resources for teacher learning and innovations in practice. This paper examines the theory-building potential of audio- and videotaped records of situated interaction among teachers in the course of everyday work. The paper employs a small segment of a larger data set to chronicle analytic dilemmas and opportunities and to introduce a scheme for theorizing about the nature and significance of professional community for teacher development and school reform.     

Professional development in a culture of inquiry: PDS teachers identify the benefits of professional learning communities

Teacher researchers in a Professional Development School context identify two important shifts in traditional school cultures in order for teacher inquiry to thrive as a means for teacher development: a shift to community and a shift to uncertainty. PDS teachers in this study spoke about their need for supportive learning communities where they may collaborate and engage in dialogue with colleagues and other professionals. Professional learning communities created opportunities for dialogue which also made it safe to ask questions and work in a community where uncertainty was not only valued, but supported. Professional learning communities for teacher development also need to be analyzed for insights they bring to teacher education, professional development, and educational change. Recognizing and understanding tensions in collaboration and dialogue and their connected shifts to community and uncertainty could enhance learning opportunities for teachers as well as the life of a teacher with an inquiry stance.     

Exploring teacher–student interactions: communities of practice,ecological learning systems – or something else?

A small-scale action research project was used to consider the policy and rhetoric surrounding development of the ‘expert learner’ and how this might be further explored to provide opportunities for learners to have greater direct involvement in reflection and discussion with teachers. The research was based within a further education setting, using participants from an ‘HE in FE’ curriculum area: teacher education. It sought to explore how involving students as partners in the peer observation process might be used to engage with student voice and enhance the teaching and learning experience for all involved. To evaluate the creation, sharing and development of teaching and learning that might be generated in such circumstances, the research used two theoretical frameworks to analyse the data: communities of practice and ecological learning systems. This article reviews the literature around these two frameworks and critically reflects on the influences of these approaches in communities of teaching and learning. Analysis of interviews, and the interactions and dialogue contained within these, revealed something else happening within these connections. As such, it considers the opportunities facilitated in this context and how development of a newly-devised continuum of practice may be used to enable professional dialogue to enhance student–teacher interactions.     

Academic identities and communities of practice in a professional discipline

This paper explores the dynamics surrounding the formation of academic identities in a context where the nature of academic work is contested both as a result of tensions within the discipline and in response to pressure from both the institution and the field of higher education. It is based on a case study which investigated the process of academic identity formation at the micro level of a department at a South African university. The study revealed a complex relationship between identity construction and participation within the particular configuration of teaching, professional and research communities of practice that defined the academic field in the department. Multiple identity trajectories were evident, indicating the role of individual agency, despite the dominance of a professional community of practice within the department. The arrival of new academics in the department without professional practice experience was found to have created the possibility of a changed notion of the academic within the discipline.     

Reframing Practice: Teacher Learning Through Interactions in a Collaborative Group

Using a case study design and ethnographic methods, this research investigated the interactions of a group of high school mathematics teachers who collaborated daily on issues related to curricular and pedagogical reforms. The members of the collaboration team implemented these reforms with the goal of supporting all students’ learning of 1st-year college preparatory mathematics. This study used conceptual tools from frame analysis (E. Goffman, 1974) alongside an analysis of teacher participation patterns to understand teacher learning within a community of practice (E. Wenger, 1998). This analysis documented development within the teacher community through teachers increasing orientation to classroom-based interventions for struggling students alongside more collegial participation patterns, contributing an empirical example of teacher learning within a community of practice.     

Using Community Artifacts to Support Novice Math Teacher Educators in Teaching Prospective Teachers

Despite the centrality of math teacher educators (MTEs) in teacher education, we know little about the nature of professional learning opportunities for MTEs to develop and enhance the knowledge needed to teach prospective teachers. Existing models for supporting MTEs in developing their knowledge and practice do not address how to prepare novice MTEs in initially learning to teach prospective teachers. We present a professional learning model we have been pursuing for supporting novice MTEs and the generation of and role for community artifacts, namely lesson plans, in that model. We outline the process by which we implement, analyze, and collectively revise lesson plans so that they are continually improved over time to serve as artifacts that better instantiate what members of the local community are learning about how to support novice MTEs through identification of their problems of practice. Finally, we problematize the model we are investigating and propose implications of this model and questions raised by our work with the goal of inviting further discussion about supporting novice MTEs.

     

自我研究：西方高校内部院系评估的传统

自我研究（self—study）是英美等西方发达国家高校开展校内院系评估的传统,是西方高校开展内部院系评估的一种基本的较为成熟的实践形态,反映了西方大学制度的特点和西方高等教育学术社区珍视学术自由的传统。西方院系评估案例表明,至少在高教系统、高校、学院和学系等四个层面上分别进行过各具特色的院系自我研究。随着问责、质量保证、绩效思想在高教的影响日益扩大、加深,院系作为高等学校的基本组织单位面临一系列改革议题,进一步加强这一领域的评估研究或探索的必要性和动机日益凸现。     

Revolutionary love at work in an arctic school with conflicts

This paper explores how “revolutionary love” may be a viable response in a teacher’s pedagogical practices. To do so, we present an in-depth case study of one teacher in a reindeer herding village in Finnish rural north. The paper asks what does revolutionary love mean in teaching practice and what distinguishes loving from non-loving teaching practices? What are the implications for the prospects of personal and community transformation? The findings from this study show the manifestations of transformative loving responses in teaching practice and the opportunities that are created for learning and growth. The study has important implications for educational change in small communities and makes a contribution to considering love-as-revolutionary praxis in teaching.     

Teacher learning across boundaries: a challenge to the legitimacy of language teachers’ disciplinary knowledge

The legitimate forms of knowledge recognised for language teachers in Chinese universities are differentiated by strong academic boundaries, subject only to disciplinary authority and fashion. Classroom practice on the whole tends not to be informed by research. For many language teachers, a disconnect exists between the academic discipline in which they are situated and the knowledge they apply in the language classroom. The ethnographic study addresses this disconnection. It is based on 3 years of fieldwork, which investigated a case of disciplinary innovation in the English language department of a Chinese university. Two aspects of teacher learning are investigated, namely institutional boundary practice as discursive space for learning and the learning experience of individual teachers within that space. The study reveals that boundary practice can be a source of transformative energy in developing learning cultures within which individuals may experience a process of identity integration.     

Teacher–Artist Partnership Framework Within School Makerspaces to Foster Students’ Creativity

Creativity is a fundamental skill to prepare individuals to work and live in a changing world. Educators have recognised its value and advocate that schools can provide an environment for fostering the creative thinking skills of students. Makerspaces are emerging in school contexts, and they carry great opportunities for engaging students in creative thinking processes. The school makerspace also offers a professional learning space for teachers and artists to collaborate to support students’ creative potential through making activities linked to the curriculum. This paper proposes a teacher–artist partnership framework within the makerspace to support mutual professional growth and opportunities to foster a learning environment conducive to creative expressions. The framework consists of three non-linear and iterative processes, namely (a) developing craft knowledge, (b) co-constructing knowledge, and (c) reflection and researching, supported by a community of practice and internal and external communities. Expected outcomes from the partnership for students, teachers and artists, and recommendations are discussed.     

Adopting learning technologies: from belief to practice

A challenge faced by most heads of academic departments around the world is to manage the adoption and use of appropriate learning technologies in order to support the department’s learning offerings to students. Earlier research undertaken by the authors revealed that lecturers within the Department of Marketing and Retail Management at the University of South Africa believed a learning management system (LMS) to be the most appropriate technology to use. The experience of the Chair of Department, however, is that lecturers are using the university’s proprietary LMS, myUnisa, either to a limited extent or hardly at all. Consequently, further research was undertaken targeting the other Chairs of Departments and selected senior lecturers within the School of Management Sciences, to which the Department of Marketing and Retail Management belongs, in order to identify ways of increasing the use of myUnisa amongst lecturers.     

‘Because We Weren’t Actually Teaching Them,We Thought They Weren’t Learning’: Primary Teacher Perspectives from the MyScience Initiative

MyScience is a primary science education initiative in which being in a community of practice is integral to the learning process. This paper describes the ongoing journey to date of eight primary teachers from three primary schools who actively participated in MyScience over an extended period. Their views of interactions with mentors and students were analysed, in part, using attributes associated with both ‘communities of practice’ and the ‘nature of science’. Findings reveal teachers’ new understandings about the teacher–student relationship and learning within a community of practice. Implications for science teaching and learning in primary school community of practice settings are discussed.     

Preparing teachers for multicultural classrooms

This article examines issues involved in teaching culturally diverse students and questions current practice in multicultural teacher education. An alternative approach to preparing teachers for multicultural classrooms, illustrated by the Teachers for Alaska program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, focuses prospective teachers on (a) attending to multicultural classroom and community contexts, (b) designing instruction to make connections between academic subject matter and diverse students' backgrounds, and (c) learning how to learn from students, communities, and practical experience. The authors argue that radical departures from traditional teacher education are possible and that breaks from standard practice are both desirable and effective in preparing teachers for multicultural classrooms.     

New Model of Teacher Learning in an Online Network

While many researchers have examined teacher participation and professional development in online networks and communities, few have looked at the factors and contexts that shape how teachers learn in these online spaces. Examining teachers' learning processes within these online spaces can yield important insights for scholars, school leaders, and teacher educators who are interested in designing online networks and communities or supporting teacher professional development within these spaces. This study was designed to shed light on the multifaceted nature of teacher learning within an online network environment. Data were collected through an online survey and in-depth interviews of members in the Edmodo math subject community. A thematic analysis was conducted across the two data sets in order to identify patterns of actions and factors that shaped the participants' learning processes. A new model of teacher learning was developed to display teacher learning as an iterative, multistep process that is socially constructed, distributed, and situated in the contexts in which teachers work. Implications and ideas for further research are discussed.     

Valuing Teaching: A Strategy For Changing the Organisational Culture of an Academic Department

Although government funding initiatives can provide an immediate incentive for the development of good teaching practices, ongoing and widespread improvement in the quality of teaching and learning is likely to occur only when the organisational culture of academic departments is such that good teaching is held in those departments to be a fundamental and shared value rather than primarily an individual responsibility. This paper describes the organisational development strategies used within one large academic department to bring about a reassessment of the role and practice of teaching and support the subsequent implementation of teaching‐related reforms. It examines the role of leadership, devolved responsibility and consultation in effecting change in both the practice of teaching and the organisational culture of a department.     

Building effectiveness in teaching through targeted evaluation and response: connecting evaluation to teaching improvement in higher education

This paper describes the development of a model for integrating student evaluation of teaching results with academic development opportunities, in new ways that take into account theoretical and practical developments in both fields. The model is described in terms of five phases or components: (1) the basic student evaluation system; (2) an interpretive guidance system that helps lecturers understand and interpret their results; (3) a longitudinal reporting system that initiates opportunities for staff to engage in personal and professional development in the context of a learning community; (4) a structured professional development programme that builds a faculty learning community, in which the members utilise extended cycles of evaluation based on (5) a comprehensive evaluation model designed to develop and encourage the collection of evaluation data from a variety of sources concerning the quality and impact of teaching: the teacher; student learning outcomes; student experience; and the teacher’s peers.